This blog will be a description of how unethical education research has impacted this nation's public school system and why we need universal parental choice.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Letter to the Tampa Bay Times - Common Core Standards

This letter was written in response to the Tampa Bay Times' constantly dismissing all objectors' concerns about the Common Core Standards as coming from members of the Tea Party. I have nothing at all against the Tea Party and what they stand for, but I'm not a member of that organization and neither are many of the other people who have voiced objections to these awful Standards. I don't know if they'll print the letter - it got a bit long - but either way, here it is.

September 25, 2013

To: Tampa Bay Times

Common Core Standards

The people objecting to the Common
Core Standards are members of many different political parties including
Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and Independents. The TB Times does a disservice to its readers
by constantly referring to all objectors as “Tea Party members”.

In addition to the valid criticisms
of being top-down, one-size-fits all, un-Constitutional, and extremely costly,
many of us are very concerned with the poor quality of the Standards
themselves. We’ve arrived at these opinions
through carefully reading these Standards as well as studying plentiful
commentaries and articles written by professionals who give thorough and
reasonable explanations for their concerns.
I agree with the experts in Math when they complain that CC puts us two
years behind other countries, for example, when I can read for myself that students
are not expected to achieve proficiency at adding and subtracting using the
Standard Algorithm until the 4th grade. (CCSS.Math.Content.4.NBT.B.4). This
isn’t surprising given the materials and methodology pushed by the CC-driven
text books and assessments, especially when one examines some of the bizarre
“alternative” algorithms taking up more and more time in CC classrooms across
the nation. Far from providing deeper
understanding of Math concepts, this is leading to frustration and academic
disengagement even in previously very good students who loved Math. When these students’ college-educated parents
admit to being baffled by what comes home in the name of 2nd grade Math,
it is obvious that something has gone seriously wrong with the schools – not
with the parents. The Language Arts CC
Standards are also very problematic and fly in the face of decades of research
examining the knowledge necessary to succeed in college or anywhere else.

Many of today’s CC objectors are
old enough to remember having our concerns over OBE, Whole Language and Discovery
Math dismissed by the news media as the paranoia of The Religious Right and
other “loonies” back in the 90’s. Then
we had to listen to this same media complain about their loss of readership,
the decline in literacy and the breathtaking lack of skills and knowledge in
our workforce. The fact is that there
are reasonable people who have valid doubts that this latest fad is any better
than the long line of previous, now discredited trends. It is time that parents’ concerns are taken
seriously – and I mean that parents should be given the right to choose a
different course for their children when the public school system – again –
goes off on one of its ill-considered tangents.
We need parents’ choice.